United Nations

Despite worsening human rights abuse in Uganda, the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee voted, on May 24th, to include another $50 million, in the draft version of the fiscal 2013 Defense bill, for surveillance and intelligence support to Ugandan troops, U.S. Green Berets and Navy Seals, who are, according to the Obama Administration, hunting East African warlord Joseph Kony.

The announcement of Kablia's victory led to riots in Kinshasa and calls from opposition leaders for the international community to intervene. There have since been confrontations between demonstrators in the Katanga and North and South Kivu Provinces and military police have arrested protestors in Katanga.

On Thursday December 15th, he US Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing about the crisis, where experts from the International Crisis Group told them that the Congolese election is indefensible and that Kabila is now ruling without a shard of legitimacy.

At the urging of the UN and the Catholic Church, Vital Kamerhe, on December 15th, took the opposition case for annulment of the results and a new election to the Congolese Supreme Court, even though Kabila, anticipating electoral disputes, appointed 18 new Supreme Court judges at the outset of the campaign season, increasing the number of judges on the court from 9 to 27. Kamerhe's lawyers called the proceedings a "travesty of justice" and walked out of the courtroom before the end of the first day. On Saturday, December 17th, the court ruled that Kabila had won the election and was therefore the rightful president of the D.R.C. The East African presidents of Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Tanzania, Kenya, and Sudan have already recognized Kabila, but Obama's State Department has refused to say whether he will or not.

This discussion of Congo's political crisis, with Maurice Carney, Executive Director of Friends of the Congo, and Eric Kamba, Congolese refugee and social worker with the Boston-based Congolese Development Center, was recorded on Saturday, December 10th, and broadcast on WBAI, 99.5fm-N.Y.C. and streaming online, on Thursday, December 15th, 2011.

Congolese Americans protested Congo's election in front of the White House two days before Monday's polls, while police clubbed and fired tear gas and live rounds on a crowd marching to meet opposition candidate Étienne Tshisikedi at the airport.